Best Friends - Remus and the Doll

As I mentioned in the previous post I also did a painting for my mum but as she loves cats, especially my cat, Remus I decided to do hers with my cartoon version of him, spots and all. I actually painting this one first. The aren't a low of differences but I was going for a set thing like some artists do. The characters are slightly bigger in this one and I gave my doll the black stitching. I was also not very good at shading when I did this one do you can see that its not as neat as the other but I like how you can see how I improved. Although the brown splodgy colours in the background were because Remus actually decided to help and jumped in my paint and then onto the canvas so it was my attempts at fixing the damage. If it had been paw prints instead of slodges it would of been brilliant though!

Best Friends - Doll and Dragon

Last christmas I decided to do a painting for my boyfriends mum and my mum as their christmas presents. I personally like you acrylic paint but watering it down a bit. I had gone on a theme of my doll and decided that they can have the doll with something they love and the one below was for my boyfriends mum who loves Dragons. I first of all designed the dragon and then decided to change my doll now I have learned more and I think he has really improved! Personally I wanted the stitching to be black like my design but she saw it before I'd done that and wanted it with light stitching but as thats what she wanted and it was for her that is what I did.

Progression of the Painting
When I was a bit through the process of painting it I decided to start taking photos to show how I went about doing it as I thought she and anyone else who sees it might find it interesting.

I started by drawing the design on the canvas and then the background using shading techniques to make it as it is. I then did a base layer on the dragon in a deep blue and tried using a lighter version of the background for it's ears and back of wings. I also tip the wing tip and a base layer for the dragons chest. I also did the ear a dirty pink colour but soon changed my mind.

I decided after doing the red in the wings that it didn't work so I made it blue too. Here I added lighter and darker shades of the blue to show the shape of the Dragon better.

Next I shaded in the chest and ear and also added its eye. You can see the dragon really coming together now.

Then I went onto the doll and gave it a base layer with some shading. Then gave it mismatch eyes and some features.

Finally, I finished the dolls shading and added the black outlines. I ummed and ahhh for a while about adding the black lines but its more my style so i thought best to add them. Although I do still look back at the image before and have a twinge of regret for adding them as it looks quite beautiful without them. Maybe I will do this painting again for myself minus the lines.

Voodoo Doll

This painting came about because I was drawing cute cartoon characters and my lecturer said that one without a face looked like a Voodoo doll. I thought about it and decided to make it into one. The same day I was sent a picture of a person with a barcode tattooed on their neck so I combined the 2 and this came about. It's up in my house and its amazing how many people compliment it!

I also made a little animation with him where he morphed into one of my cute characters. If I can find it then I will post it on here too.

T-shirt Doodle Design

I came up with this design a few years ago. I was having a very emotional week and it all just came out into this image. Once I had made it, people who saw it in my sketchbook said I should get it printed on t-shirts. I never did this but did make a mock up of what it might look like.

Robot Arm from Springboard Assignment

When we first got our assignment to block the Robot Arm on my Maya Springboard course with Animation Mentor I decided to draw it, the idea was to get more of a feeling for the object so I could bring it to life.

Sketches of People Sitting

Below are 2 drawings I did of people sitting and both working on a computer although I decided to leave them out. Personally, I find humans the hardest thing to draw so I will keep practicing and hopefully I will get better.

Cartoon Ermines

Here are some cartoon Ermines that I drew based on the life drawings that I drew earlier in this blog.

Pot Belly Pig Sketch Animation

Pot Belly Pig Pose Sketches & Reference

Gerbils, Hamsters and Degu Pose Sketches

Chicken Pose Sketches

I enjoy drawing chickens, they do some interesting things even if you might think they don't. They are also an interesting shape and enjoyable to draw.

Meerkats, Marmosets and Rabbit Pose Sketches

Here are more of my sketches from Ponderosa Rare Breeds Farm.
I found Meerkats difficult as they rarely stay still so each drawing had to be drawn quickly. The Marmoset was a bit easier as it was more interested in me so it stayed a bit more still and the rabbits weren't moving much either so I got plenty of time to do the life drawing on the left. Sorry that the photo isn't very clear, I will try and find the sketch and take another one.

Lizards Quick Life Drawings

Here are some life drawings of some lizards that I did quickly and with a pen. It was my first time really trying to do this with a pen as I've always preferred pencils.

Lemur Pose Sketches

At the Ponderosa Rare Breeds Farm again and this time with Lemurs. I enjoyed drawing the Lemurs but towards the end they curled up and didn't move much so didn't get a lot of sketches of them. At this point I was still learning to do pose sketches of animals.

Racoon Pose Sketches

Here is another group of my sketches from Ponderosa Rare Breeds Farm but this time of a Racoon and above are photos of said Racoon. He was very difficult to draw as he kept trying to steal my pen or paper or he was running around his cage at top speed. They aren't very good pose sketches because of this but I am up for the challenge to attempt drawing a Racoon again as I have learned more about doing pose sketches of quick animals.

Reindeer Pose Sketches

My next few posts will be pose sketches that I drew at Ponderosa Rare Breeds Farm and the ones below are of Reindeers. I had never tried drawing them before and didn't spend a long time with them but I found them difficult to draw but interesting as they would cross their legs while changing direction and hardly ever stopped moving between the trees.

Cartoon drawings of Remus

I was watching one of my lecture videos today and Remus kept coming up to me and crying and looking longingly outside but as I'm at my boyfriends who lives next to a busy road he isn't allowed out. It was then that I did some quick drawings of him in my notebook. I edited the pic a bit to remove my notes for you though.

Life Drawings of Remus

Here are some Life Drawings of my Bengal cat, Remus when he was a kitten. I love how Bengals have a wild look about them because they have Asian Leopard Cats in their ancestry. Remus is about 5 generations from one.



Here are some photos of Remus when he was a kitten to compare my drawings to :)

Remus the cat - design sketches

Here are some drawings I did when designing the cartoon version of my Bengal cat, Remus for my final year uni project.

Here I tried working on the face but soon realised that the eyes were too close together and with the spots it was too busy.


So I made the eyes further apart and removed the spots but kept some stripes for some markings. I was still working on side views at this point and for some reason was having hard time with it.


Here he didn't look cartoony or cute enough so he turned into the character at the top. Yeah for some odd reason I started at the bottom of the page and worked up. No idea why. I had also worked out side views from looking at Remus and films with cartoon cats in. Looks lots better and its easier to draw!


Then finally some more design sketches with the finishing look of him. I make notes a lot on my work to remind me what isn't looking right or what I want to change so when I come back later I can read it and then look again and see if I still agree or not and then can do said changes.

Another old cartoon drawing

This was a design sheet for my character in my final year project for uni. I actually made her look a bit like I did when I was younger as thats when I was most confident and happy about how I look. In a way she is the younger version of me. On the left is a photo I found of me in a backward cap too!

As you can tell my character has a bigger head and smaller body than myself. This is for her to look appealing and cartoony. By the way, the fish on the hat was just rough and to give the idea that a fish will go there so no Jesus thing going on with character, just a quick way of showing a fish.